Challenge
This time we'd like to see you create your perfect office space complete with gadgets and knick-knacks! It can be something realistic or taken straight from your imagination, modern or old-fashined, huge open plan or tiny and crammed with lots of stuff. You can choose if you want to focus on a microenvironment within the office (for example a simple corner desk with a lamp and just a few objects) or the office space as a whole. This allows for members with various skill sets to participate, and we hope that it will encourage new Maya users as well as the more seasoned to give it a shot. What we're looking for in this challenge is a complete art piece.

Challenge Rules
1. No characters are allowed within the office environment, with the exception of plants you can only include inanimate objects in your final scene.
2. All entries must post a work in progress thread on the forum, final entries without WIP will not be considered when the challenge is judged.
3. The final render must be original work created specifically for this challenge, however it is fine to use models you have created in the past as part of your office environment if you whish to do so.
4. The main part of your work in this challenge should be made in Maya or Lightwave.

Judgement Criteria
1. Creative Approach - This is a design challenge so creativity and originality in creating the model will be awarded bonus points, this applies to the space as a whole as well as individual pieces of furniture present. Please note that this does not mean that a minimalistic photorealistic image can not win if a highly original piece with complicated geometry is present as it comes down to a combination of artistic abilities and technical skills, if two images are considered equally strong in terms of technique the more creative design will win.
2. Technical Skills - The obvious things such as pinching in models, streched textures, blown out lighting, weak shading and other technical flaws that draws down the overall impression of your piece will give minus points. This means that an entry that has had a lot more work put into the texturing than another will be preferred, providing that it is done without any technical mistakes. A more complicated scene modeling, texturing or lighting wise but with weakness in one of these field competing against a simpler scene that has been perfectly executed will lose between two.
3. Final Image - As always it's an art challenge so good color composition for materials and lighting that compliments your scene is important as well as how you chose to frame it with your cameras. This challenge is about the final look of your scene, it is not a modeling only challenge but about creating a piece of art that you can be happy with. A complicated model will not win over a simpler one that is more interesting to look at once it's textured, lit and rendered. It's up to you to decide if you want to aim for a photorealistic or stylized cartoon look in your renders, these will be considered equally and it will come down to what we consider the highest quality work. No favouritism towards either, however an image that is supposed to be photorealistic will be judged harder if it fails to achieve this regardless of the other elements present.

With this being a design / creative challenge, This is right up my street. I like doing interior design even though im more of a graphic designer but i just had a load of ideas buzzin around inside my head when reading the rules.

Cant wait to get started...Concept first though i think. Cheers SM / SL!

I just have a quick question. Recently I started to post more actively on CGTalk, and share some of my images there, and my question is that can we post the WIP images for this challenge in some other WIP forum (for example the WIP 3d stills on CGTalk) to some feedback, or are these images exclusive for the simplymaya forum during the time of the challenge?

I just have a quick question. Recently I started to post more actively on CGTalk, and share some of my images there, and my question is that can we post the WIP images for this challenge in some other WIP forum (for example the WIP 3d stills on CGTalk) to some feedback, or are these images exclusive for the simplymaya forum during the time of the challenge?
Originally Posted by Daveido
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No problem, images are still yours not ours and cgtalk is a good place for critique. In fact you promote SimplyMaya by posting your challenge work there as well as here so double plus

I am in
In last challenge "my fav: toy" i didn't get to the top position. but i loved creating He-Man. I am highly thankful to Simpymaya members for that challenge. well this time the topic is much more exciting" My dream office". ahh and i have an idea for this . I will start uploading WIP soon..

THX1138 these are called challenges for a reason and there is $500 up for grabs so I dont think they should be easy. If you are trying to get into this business you will have to at some time do a inside shot or at least understand how to do it...........dave